And they set off, the four of them, across the lawn in the direction of the dower house with a continuation of the silly, mindless banter—in which Imogen joined. She found herself almost wishing someone would suggest the one-two-three-jump game. And then, when they came to her house, Percy opened the gate with a flourish, she stepped inside, he closed it, and the men took turns, the foolish idiots, raising the back of her hand to their lips and assuring her that she had brightened their day and made the fact of the hidden sun quite irrelevant.
She stood at the gate, watching them walk away, Hector trotting along behind. They were still talking, still laughing, and she realized she was smiling—and realized too that it was an unfamiliar feeling. And then she was blinking back tears—yet again. Another unfamiliar feeling.
Percy turned his head briefly before they disappeared from sight behind a tree and smiled at her. And she was still smiling herself, tears notwithstanding.
Oh, goodness, oh, goodness—she was so very deeply in love with him.
And it was all her own fault. She had no one to blame but herself.
* * *
“You have my permission,” she said, “to use my key at night—to let yourself in as well as out. Then I will not have to wait up, wondering if you are coming or not, for you will not always be able to come, will you?”
He backed her against the wall of the hallway and kissed her openmouthed. It was closer to half past twelve than to midnight. He had half expected to find the dower house in darkness and had not known if he would knock on her door anyway. Her key had been burning a hole in his pocket.
“I am sorry,” he told her. “I could not get away any sooner. We had a visitor.”
“I know,” she said. “Mr. Wenzel, was it not? He brought Tilly and Elizabeth Quentin here and went to the hall rather than return home and come back for them later. But I am glad you came.”
“So am I.” He rubbed his nose across hers.
She was wearing her ancient fossil of a dressing gown again, and he marveled at the fact that she had not titivated herself for her lover, as every other woman with whom he had been intimate had always done. Her hair was tied at the neck again, though it was draped loosely over her ears and back tonight. Her lips were slightly parted, the upper one with its engaging lift. Her eyes were . . . open. He still had not thought of a better word than that. Her hands were resting on his shoulders, pushed beneath the capes of his greatcoat.
Deuce take it, but I love you.
He gazed into her eyes, frozen for a moment. He had not spoken aloud, had he? But he heard no echo of the words and saw no shock in her face.
“Are you inviting me in?” he asked.
“Are you not already in?” she said. “But where do you wish to go? Upstairs? The sitting room?”
It ought to have been obvious. It was almost half past midnight and they were new lovers.
“The sitting room,” he said. “But no tea, thank you. I have drunk enough of the stuff since the arrival of my family to sail away on. Even poor Wenzel was plied with it twice this evening.”
She picked up the lamp so that he could set his outdoor things on the chair and led the way into the sitting room. Was he mad? Or going senile? It was the middle of the night, there was a wide, comfortable bed upstairs, she was willing to welcome him into it and into her, she looked as delicious as the cake and the icing and the cream filling all in one despite the fact that she had not titivated herself or perhaps because of it—and he had chosen the sitting room instead?
“I am surprised he did not stay here instead of calling on us,” he said.
“Mr. Wenzel? With Tilly and Elizabeth, you mean?” she asked. “He never does. Nor does Sir Matthew when it is his turn to bring them. We like to discuss our books just among ourselves.”
“A reading club?” he said.
“We have been meeting monthly for the past three years,” she explained as she set down the lamp on the mantel and reached for the poker. But it was already in his hand, and she sat down on the love seat while he stirred the coals and put on a few more. The animals had settled comfortably close to the heat. “We all read the same book or set of poems or essays and then discuss them over tea and biscuits or cake. We enjoy that one evening of the month immensely.”
“And what was it tonight?” he asked as he straightened up.
“Just one poem, though a longish one,” she said. “William Wordsworth’s ‘Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.’ Have you read it? One of my friends, one of my fellow Survivors, lives in Wales, though his home is on the western side of it rather than in the Wye valley in the east. I went there with George last year for his wedding.”
“George?” That was not jealousy flaring in him, was it?
“Duke of Stanbrook, owner of Penderris Hall,” she explained. “A sort of cousin though a closer relationship than yours and mine. He is another of the Survivors.”
“The one whose wife jumped off a cliff?”
“Yes,” she said.
He wished he had not remembered that particular detail. The man had also lost a son to the wars and must be as old as the hills. Percy tried to remember him from the House of Lords but without any success. Perhaps he would recognize him if he saw him.
He eyed the empty chair beside the fire and went to sit on the love seat. He turned and scooped her up and set her on his lap with her feet on the seat beside them. She was on the tall side, but she wriggled downward—heaven help him—until she was snuggled against him, the side of her head on his shoulder. She inhaled audibly.